Paleo/Primal Recipe: Coconut-Almond Chicken
Like many Paleo/Primal eaters, I love coconut.
It’s delicious, nutritious, and incredibly versatile– between coconut milk, shredded coconut, and coconut oil, you can do pretty much anything (and there’s even a Primal cookbook devoted to coconut!). Â I also love almond in all of its forms: Â almond butter, almond meal, almond slivers, raw almonds. Â While there are countless ways to combine these two super-foods, I decided to make chicken breast coated with shredded coconut, chopped almonds, and cinnamon.
Since I started eating Paleo/Primal over a year ago, I stopped eating “breaded” chicken (until today)– in my 19 years of the Standard American Diet, however, I used to eat chicken breaded in everything from bread crumbs to corn flakes to potato chips. Â This coconut-almond recipe proves that you don’t need unhealthy foods to make a “breading”– actually, I think this tastes better than any of those Standard American Diet chicken recipes!
Ingredients:
-1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts
-1/2 cup finely chopped almonds
-1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
-Cinnamon (and/or any other spice)
-Coconut milk
Directions:
1.  Preheat oven to 400°.
2. Â Mix together coconut, almonds, and cinnamon in a bowl. Â Pour coconut milk into a separate bowl.
3. Â Dip chicken breast in coconut milk and roll in coconut/almond/cinnamon mixture and place on pan. Â (I found it easiest to pour the mixture onto a flat surface, such as a plate, to do this step, but you can do it in the bowl too.)
4. Â Bake in oven for 20-25 minutes.
Many people become bored while eating Paleo/Primal because they believe there’s not a lot of food choices.
However, combining Paleo/Primal foods to make things like “breading” can spice up your meals– modifying this recipe can also get you simply coconut chicken, almond chicken, or cinnamon-rubbed chicken.
Change up the protein to shrimp or salmon, or change the almonds to walnuts or pecans.
No matter how you decide to combine or substitute the ingredients, you’ll find yourself with a meal that’s 100% real and 100% delicious.
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Fixing this tonight. Hope it tastes as good as it looks/sounds!
I tried this with both chicken and turkey it was awesome with both but I found that the coconut is just a little more badass with the turkey. Cheers thanks for the recipe
This was great!! My family loved it. I have too little ones (5 yrs old and 17 months) and they are good eaters but they are still picky. They loved this and asked for more. I didn’t use almonds since I didn’t have any so I used walnuts instead..is that ok for paleo?? and I did let them sit in the coconut milk for 20 minutes while i got other things ready.
Oh my goodness! A healthy meal that my boyfriend’s kid actually LIKED! Kiddo is even bringing some to school to have for lunch tomorrow instead of the usual nastiness he eats! THANK YOU!
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This is such a very insightful post, all the information you’ve given are just right on. Thanks so much that you have shared this interesting review. I never would have thought that two could be very good for chicken fillet.
I am not into any kind of special diet but I do appreciate coconut a lot since I live in a country where coconut is abundant. Our local coconut meat dishes are a bit complex and time consuming sometimes. I must say your recipe here is simple and equally delicious, thank you!
Wow! What a fantastic looking recipe – I’m going to try this one out this weekend! I’m a die-hard paleo follower, I decided to follow the 30-day approach and stick with it, I have never looked back. The first 20 days where fairly hard for me, mainly in becoming fluent with my meals, I have a copy of the Paleo Cookbooks (http://www.paleocookbook.com for anyone interested), they helped me SO much in creating paleo meal after meal, and continue to do so to this day. I recommend paleo to anyone looking to improve their health – so I’m helping to spread the word!
Coconuts are not only good for cooking, they are good for hair, skin, and improving natural health and beauty! You can eat em, drink em, and smear em on your face!
http://naturallybeautifulwomen.com/2011/03/09/c-is-for-coconut-oil-and-its-many-uses-for-natural-beauty/
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